Photo Gallery Friday: 2016 Michigan Fall Color, Lower Peninsula

Photo Gallery Friday is a regular feature on Travel the Mitten that will help showcase photos from places where a few pictures just aren’t enough to show off everything.

As we creep our way towards winter in these first few weeks of November, most of the leaves have fallen from the trees across our great state. Last week we shared some of our favorite fall color pictures from the Upper Peninsula this year, and this week we’re back with a small gallery of pictures from locations around the Lower Peninsula in October and early November. We hope you enjoy our 2016 Michigan Fall Color, Lower Peninsula post and that it gives a last gasp of scenic autumn beauty before the snow starts to fly. Each year Michigan’s forests are transformed with vibrant yellow, orange and red colors as the leaves change before falling to the ground. This is one of our favorite times of year to get out and explore the state, revisiting many of the same places that we went to over the summer to see what they look like with different backgrounds.

Among the locations we visited were Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore (including Loon Lake, Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive and more), Pickerel Lake Park (Kent County), Manistee River High Rollway (Buckley, MI), Kal Haven State Trail (South Haven), as well as various roadside parks and other locations. We also checked out the Kent County fall color trails as posted by the Kent County Road Commission. Some of our top tips for finding great color spots are to find places with higher elevation and clear views, focus on locations near water (lakes, rivers, etc.) for great reflection shots, and look at locations along walking trails where the trees can form a canopy overhead.